Power, Terrifying and Immense
by coatcollar
Summary: Erik Lehnsherr and Loki meet after Loki falls to earth. Drabble. AU-ish; I have messed with world history so that the events in X-Men First Class happen in the modern day. Which means WWII happened in the 80's? Don't think about it too hard.
1. Chapter 1

It's the red helmet that catches Loki's eye, really, more than the man wearing it. He can tell what it's supposed to do; the mutants he's run into in his travels have had various talents, and he felt enough of the telepathy to be able to tell that this helmet can resist it. It's useless against his magic, though, and Loki's instantly curious as to what this mutant is hiding because of course he is, he's the god of mischief and chaos, and the helmet has to have a story behind it.

He wasn't expecting to find what seems to be a reflection of himself.

The mind of the man with the helmet is shattered and dark and chaotic and refracted into about a thousand shards and Loki feels the pain of each one individually. He can't examine each one individually because doing so would remind him too much of his own pain (and now he's thought about it, damn) but he gets a general impression of blue eyes and a beach, and something that looks like a coin with a strange cross-like shape on it, and there's an impression of terrible and immense power, Loki's genuinely surprised that a Midgardian can possess that much power, it even looks like he has allies who would follow him anywhere and _what_ is that underlying desire.

_No. It can't be._

It _is._

_Humans were made to be ruled_, says the mind of the man with the helmet, and the last pieces of Loki's plan fall to complete the puzzle.

When he swaggers over to the man with the helmet and pulls up a stool beside him, calling out to the bartender for another round for himself and the helmeted gentleman, please, he's wearing the blue eyes he saw in the tatters of the man's mind.

* * *

They are silent and vicious. Peace was never an option and lust flares and sparks in its embers until everything is the movement and the sharp painful stabs of ecstasy and, incongruously, the faint violet scent of the hotel's lotion. Erik pants harshly above him and Loki remembers his fall as his vision whites out, stars crystallizing, the concussion of universes, and he's in free fall with no hope of survival.

"Whose eyes was I wearing?" Loki dares to ask, afterwards, lying spent and terrifyingly vulnerable on the bed, extricating his mind from the haze of pleasure.

"He betrayed me." The depths of pain have not healed prettily, are revealed in the harsh edges of the syllables. _I betrayed him._ They are the same thing; Loki understands this better than anyone, is surprised Erik does.

Loki raises himself onto his elbow and looks into Erik's eyes, darkened and bitter. "What was he to you?" he whispers, leaning in, allowing his breath to ghost over the other man's face. Erik closes his eyes and shudders, almost imperceptibly, preparing himself for the next word.

"Brother," says Erik's mouth.

_loverloverloverloverlover_ says Erik's mind, and Loki understands and does not understand and knows that this man will burn more brightly than he ever could and he imagines the power, terrifying and immense, that will come of their alliance.

"I, too."

Erik's eyes flash open, hope and steel and darkness. Loki sees in them the promise of fires burning in the streets and knows that everything in their path will be consumed without apology or forgiveness.


	2. Chapter 2

It's Tuesday, so they burn the Pentagon to the ground.

The power they have is terrifying and immense and the plan is diabolically effective in its simplicity. The attack is Erik's idea, but Loki makes it happen—he's started to get used to Erik's bloodthirsty band and they suit his needs better than he could have imagined, and this is how it works now, Erik's rage points a target and Loki doesn't trust him but does, enough, and plans the strike. Erik's one rule is "don't harm any mutants" so Loki and Emma scan the minds of the workers for any hint of unusual power, suspected or unsuspected. There are far more than one would have expected and Loki wonders a little at this until he and Azazel teleport in to retrieve them. The plan is to drop the federally employed mutants in the wilderness where they can neither harm nor be harmed by Loki's scheme, but this gets derailed when Loki teleports into what can only be a laboratory and a white-feathered face stares terrified into his.

Loki isn't surprised, exactly, and this is something he's indifferent to, more or less, but he still can hardly process the straps that bind the mutant to the table, the wings that flutter hopelessly against cruel restraints, the tray of surgical instruments, before he's teleported himself back to Erik's side.

Erik's Magneto just then, helmet and cape and purple and red and the look in his eyes burns Loki at some place deep in his gut as he turns towards him, asks "Have you got them all?"

"You should see this," is Loki's only explanation as he grabs Erik's shoulder and goes. There's a brief moment of protest and then they're in the lab again and Erik's gone completely white, mouth tight, jaw locked, and Loki looks into his eyes again and _oh,_ there it is, that underlying _humans were made to ruled_ yanked to the surface with a wrecking ball and Erik is _angry_ and the world will burn, it's a foregone conclusion. Loki would grin if he wasn't being Erik's lover because Erik's wrath is _useful, _this is the way he will claim the earth. The walls and ceiling are shaking and the surgical instruments are rattling on the tray and Erik is completely frozen in place, unable to move, and his fingernails are drawing blood from his palms.

"Do we take them?"

Erik spares him a brief glance and it sets Loki's spine on fire. "Yes," said through clenched teeth, and "Take me back out."

Loki does. "Give me Azazel. We'll get them; Mystique can care for them." A curt nod is his only response.

There are five separate labs and each one holds a mutant: ears and tail like a cat, feathery wings, amphibiously webbed fingers. Azazel is impassive as he works to remove restraints, says nothing to calm the mutants. Loki doesn't either, and the two of them are flickering back and forth between their fortress in the mountains and the Pentagon. Azazel is the one who gets Mystique, who's dangerously close to bursting into tears at the sight, and then they're back at Magneto's side.

"Plant the charges." His teeth are still clenched but he's relaxed his fingers a bit and there's bloodstains on his hands, dripping down his fingers, and Loki's off again, he and Azazel planting charges and activating them throughout the building, a frenzy of appearing and disappearing in quick, deadly, efficient succession. Loki's spotted by a few very surprised humans but all he does is smile at them, the smile he uses to terrify, and vanishes again. He's only barely done with the last charge when it explodes right as he's teleporting himself back to Erik, and he stumbles on his landing because the shockwave travels with him. When he's regained his footing he looks.

What Erik's doing is _magnificent._

The building should, by all rights, be rubble by now, but Erik's holding the metal together with sheer power, and instead the explosions are contained, and the hallways are beginning to burn. Riptide's grinning and there's a vortex in his hand, and it grows until it's halfway to the Pentagon and fanning the flames into an inferno and Loki is _so proud_, there will be no survivors. He can't help it this time, he grins at Erik, and Erik's returning grin is positively feral.

Everything in their path will be consumed without apology or forgiveness and that includes them.

Erik sweeps his hands up, cape flying, blood running down his arms from his still-bleeding palms in streams, and the building _implodes, _fantastically, and then Riptide's there to scatter the still-burning pieces. It's an inferno, pieces of metal and wood and stone whirling, and sirens are beginning to sound behind them, and Loki suddenly has an uncontrollable desire to be in the center of it, to experience the devastation and dare oblivion to take him. Erik's pupils are dilated with adrenaline and excitement and Loki acts on it, seizes him and _goes._

For a second it's all heat and fire and wind and they're tumbling through the air and Erik's expression is panicked and angry and then Loki's got a shield up and they've stabilized, and Erik catches on and creates a shield of his own. They're standing on a still-smoking surface, surrounded by fire and wind and metal and stone, heat and sound, the apocalypse around them and their power is immense. Erik's grin is rage and lust combined and there's still blood on his hands and his arms and Loki deliberately chooses to give in to desire, lifts Erik's wrist to his mouth and kisses it, chases the blood with his tongue.

That night, Loki sets their bed on fire. The adrenaline from the Pentagon attack consumes them as they consume each other, fighting, reckless and vicious as always, entangled in sheets stained with Erik's blood and soaked in their sweat. Afterwards, with Erik sprawled languidly across his chest, Loki whispers, "Do you trust me?" into his ear.

Erik stirs, the ever-present helmet cool on Loki's chest, chuckles, says "No. But go ahead."

Loki closes his eyes and when he opens them the bed is outside and on fire. He smirks down at Erik and Erik looks back up at him, still grinning, aware this time that Loki does not, in fact, plan to burn him to death, and Loki's shield this time is much more formfitting, a second skin around the relief of their bodies. The flames, crackling, surround them with heat and light, dance over their skin. Loki has always loved this, playing with fire, and as the smoke roils up and the flames lap at the crumbling edge of the mattress, he reaches out and takes one of the flames into his hand, willing it to continue burning.

Erik watches, entranced, as he weaves it between his fingers in increasingly intricate patterns—ones he remembers from the tapestries in Asgard, but Asgard should not be a place that he's thinking about right now, so he tells Erik, "Hold out your hand." Erik does, and Loki sends the tendril of flame around his wrist, caressing and circling it gently as Erik lets out a little gasp of pleasure. Loki watches the flames reflected in the helmet and in Erik's eyes as his flame carefully details each of Erik's well-defined muscles: biceps, triceps, neck muscles, collarbones, shoulder blades… Erik reaches out to return the favor, running an uncharacteristically gentle hand over the lines of Loki's hips, chest, neck.

They stay like that, cocooned in flames, in what passes for them as peace and what bears no resemblance at all to what others call peace. They know they're burning, the both of them, that they're going to be reduced to ashes in nearly no time at all, but for the time being, Loki, at least, is content to let the fire burn for them, and it's like the eye of a storm. Loki runs a thumb over Erik's palm, healing it, and Erik grasps his hand and kisses his fingers, one by one, and Loki outlines his mouth in fire and then takes it into his own.

The bed collapses eventually, and they laugh in its smoldering ruins. "Is this real?" asks Erik, meaning _Is this really our bed? Is it really on fire? Have we destroyed it?_ and "Yes," says Loki, because that's what they need even in their respite; destruction is their constant companion.


End file.
